Practical guide
There are no hotels on Alicudi. There isn't even a road. Everyone who lands here sleeps in a private house, and the whole island offers a few dozen beds. This guide explains what they are actually like, and how to choose.
Alicudi is the westernmost of the Aeolian Islands and has around a hundred inhabitants. No cars, no paved roads, no cash machine. One bar, one small grocery, and a harbour where the ferry from Milazzo arrives.
Everything above the port is reached on foot, along mule tracks and stone steps. Luggage goes up on a donkey, booked in advance. That changes how you choose where to stay: the real question is not how many stars the place has, but how many steps separate you from the sea.
Nothing on the island is a hotel with a reception desk. Everything is run by private owners, often Aeolian families.
These are the closest to the landing stage, handy if you leave early or arrive on the last ferry. In exchange you sleep in the busiest spot on the island: the port is the only place with life late into a summer evening.
Many Aeolian houses have been split into two or three units. You get your own door and often a slice of terrace, but you share the building with other guests or with the owners.
This is what makes sense of Alicudi: a stone house, the terrace to yourself, a kitchen so you don't depend on the two places that serve food. There are few of them and they go months ahead for July and August.
The low strip around the landing. The bar, the grocery, the pebble beaches, the point where the hydrofoil ties up. Convenient and flat, but also the only place where you hear voices on a summer night.
Castello, Tonna, the houses scattered up the flank of the volcanic cone. You climb the steps and you gain the view, the air and the quiet. The higher you go, the more the sunset over Filicudi and Salina becomes the reason you came. And the more it matters that the water and the kitchen are in your house.
The island has very few beds. This is not a place where something turns up at the last minute in high season.
On Alicudi some things that are obvious elsewhere are not. Worth asking in writing:
La Casa della Roccia is a whole stone house about two hundred metres above the port: five minutes of steps. Two double beds and a mezzanine, up to four guests, a full kitchen, an outdoor shower and a terrace wrapping all the way around with an open view of Filicudi and Salina. No adjoining neighbour. Pets welcome. 4G coverage, no WiFi, by choice.
No. Alicudi has no hotels and no aparthotels with a reception. You sleep in private houses, apartments carved out of Aeolian homes, or a handful of rooms at the port, all run directly by their owners.
A room at the port starts at a few tens of euros a night out of season. A whole house for four usually sits between 150 and 250 euros a night depending on the season. La Casa della Roccia is 180 to 200 euros a night for the entire house.
No, and you could not bring one. There are no drivable roads and no private vehicles on the island. Everything is done on foot, and luggage and deliveries go up by donkey.
It depends how high you sleep. From the port to the first houses is five minutes of steps; the highest contrade take half an hour of climbing. Always ask for minutes uphill, not metres of distance.
Filicudi has more restaurants, more beds and a few vehicles. Alicudi has less of everything, which is exactly why it is quieter. If you want services, choose Filicudi; if you want an island where nothing happens, Alicudi.
For July and August, three or four months ahead, because the island's beds number in the dozens. For June and September, a month can be enough.
— Suivez-nous